“Eleventh Heaven is not just a riveting account of one remarkable season, but a kaleidoscope portrait of college basketball’s most storied program. Here are all the people who built, dismantled, and rebuilt UCLA basketball, led—in Rob Miech’s eloquent narrative—by Ed O’Bannon, who may yet change the entire course of college athletics." - Steve Rushin, 2005 National Sportswriter of the Year and author of five books, including The Pint Man and The 34-Ton Bat.

Upcoming Appearances

Home

The plan had been to write a book about UCLA’s 1994-95 championship basketball season soon after the Bruins won it all in Seattle on April 3, 1995. Two days later, the plan got quashed when someone ripped off my computer bag—and everything pertinent to the book—at the team’s celebration inside Pauley Pavilion. No worries, though, for with the passage of time that campaign stands among the elite teams of all time. Many of those players have had remarkable journeys. None have been more compelling than Ed O’Bannon, whose battles were not finished once he quit playing professional basketball. Upon winning a landmark five-year court battle against the NCAA, in August 2014, O’Bannon was hailed as the Curt Flood of collegiate sports. Allow me to take you back to the reconstruction of college basketball’s dynasty, how UCLA won its record eleventh NCAA title, and what the ensuing twenty years have been like for the principle figures of those Bruins.